“He left me something,” she admitted. Pulling it up from the ground, the blood was soaking into the dirt, and this was definitely fresh.
There was no embalming here.
When she brushed it off, she saw who it was.
In her hands, there was the head of Jeffrey Von Gunter, and his eye sockets were frozen open, but missing his baby blues too.
She put it down.
“He is cleaning up,” Ethan warned. “Now, it’s about the loose ends. I’ll bet he knew something, or this person was afraid he could give us a piece of the puzzle before it was time. Anywhere that he’s been, the people left behind are collateral damage to him.”
Great.
“Call for a tech van. Not Chris. We’ll have to get the man transported there. I don’t trust that this is exactly what he’d want me to do. I find a body, and what do I do?”
Gene and Ethan both knew.
“You call out your ME.”
Exactly.
“And I put him in danger. Chris is the weakest link,” she said. “He’s the one of us who is easily targeted. No one’s coming at Ethan with an Archangel all over him. Gene almost always has Demeter up his ass, and I have Ivan. Right now, we’re running short, and this person will use that. Chris stays in. Fuck evidence. There won’t be anything on Jeffrey’s head.”
On that, they agreed.
She placed it down, and stood up. This was the first time in her career she had to walk away from forensics to save time in order to cut this cuckoo off.
“He would have left a message,” Ethan said. “He’s playing a game, so there’s a message somewhere. We have to find it.”
Oh, no doubt.
“Well, then, let’s find it,” she said. “I love a scavenger hunt of crazy.”
They knew where to look.
Heading across the street, they moved toward the house. When they got there, on the front stoop, there were blood droplets leading them to the victim’s body.
Or was that leading away from it?
“Ethan, get a warrant for Opal’s body. I’m willing to bet we have her eyes in that jar.”
He didn’t argue.
“As soon as we clear this scene, I will.”
Pushing the door open, it creaked, and there was a trail of flowers beside the blood drops.
Pansies.
Yeah, he was there.
They could hear talking, but it wasn’t anyone in the room, but the TV.
And they were discussing one thing.
HER.
It was set to a twenty-four hour news show that was talking about her and this case.
